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Comment by sfk | Hacker News Reader

"If we were talking about innovations that got more output from less energy, then holding output constant while lowering energy consumption would be what everyone hoped to see. Why should human capital be different?"

Wow. I'm not a Marxist, but perhaps this person may want to start by reading Marx' view about de-humanization in industrial production.

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Well, to the dismay of people who like throwing labels like "marxist" around, Karl Marx was right about many things (also wrong about many, like every human), and his ideas seem to be more applicable nowadays than they were in his time.

Marx identified some problems. This is fairly underwhelming... one need merely step outside, point, and one can probably find a problem. Stepping outside is optional, in fact.

Marx was mindblowingly wrong about the solutions. This is also, frankly, underwhelming... solutions are really hard. He got unlucky though... people took him seriously, and a lot of people died as a result. Whoops. May we all never have the curse of being taken serious at such a scale given to us.

First, I've never seen Marxism implemented in the real world. At the time of its writing, only the UK, Germany and perhaps Holland fit the required industrialization level. Attempting to implement it in an agrarian society was doomed from the being by the theory. Now I know that many (myself included) take issue with what we now call a living wage, but so far it is the only humane response to dealing with poor people and their growing population due to industrialization. A living wage is essentially Marxism.

Think about the present situation. Technology is making more and more jobs unnecessary. Soon trucking will probably go the way of the buggy whip. That entire industry will shrink. Capitalist will own the trucks, and pay a select few to manage a fleet. The drivers and some of the mechanics are no longer needed to maintain routes. That's a lost of many good jobs.

Now, not to disrespect every trucker, but many are average intelligence or below average. If jobs that survive technology require above average intelligence, the aforementioned truckers won't have a job, even with retraining. Now what should we do with them? Pure capitalism would either have the poor die of starvation/exposure, private charities, poor jails or extermination. Private charities haven't scaled in the past. Poor jails didn't work either. I don't see anyone killing the poor either. I also don't think you'll get mass extinction in a modern society. Thus you're pretty much left with a Marxist endgame. Eventually enough of the means of production is owned by the government, either directly or taxation on the producers, that you have a Marxist state.

"Now, not to disrespect every trucker, but many are average intelligence or below average" You underestimate the adaptability of your fellow human. There may be truckers that performed less well academically than you, but perhaps they didn't need to perform academically in order to survive, and preferred a different route. Give me anyone from any background with motivation to learn the skills I can share and I'd guarantee I could get them to a decent level.

The thing is, the goalpost is moving. First of all, not everyone has enough of "motivation to learn" (along with things like time; the general case is, the poorer you are, the less time you have available to learn; this also applies to unstable situations like losing a job). Secondly, the "decent level" is the moving goalpost. At some point "decent level" is not decent enough to get the bread.

My main point is "motivation to learn" is key. Give me someone with motivation to learn, even if their free time is limited, and I can get them to a decent level in the fields I have knowledge of. As for what "decent level" means, to me in this case it means good enough to be employed based on those skills based on current requirements, and with all the mental tools to further their own education in the future.

Perhaps it's because I recognise my own aptitude is very little to do with being "intelligent" (whatever that means), and much more to do with having an interest in what I do.

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